2024–2025 Undergraduate Scholarship Winners
Please join in the English Department in celebrating our undergraduate scholarship winners for 2024–2025. Andrew Adorbo is a recipient of the Charles and Frances Mangam Merit Scholarship. The Claremont, California native is a senior English major who enjoys traveling (especially to the beach), hiking, and photography. Senior Technical Communications major Ella Barton is one of […]
Interview with Taryn Zavalin ’11
Z Eihausen: How would you describe your educational career? Taryn Zavalin: I attended UTK for my Bachelor’s in English. I didn’t choose my major until my junior year—I just took classes to fulfill my gen ed requirements and noticed which subject I took the most. ZE: Which classes/resources at UT were most beneficial to your […]
Interview with Lena Shoemaker ’23
Z Eihausen: How would you describe your educational career? Lena Shoemaker: My educational career was very arts-focused and very busy. I graduated with a BA in English – Creative Writing and Cinema Studies (double major) with a minor in applied music. It was a heavy class load, but I did a lot of summer classes […]
Interview with Ayesha Ahmed ’23
Z Eihausen: How would you describe your educational career? Ayesha Ahmed: I started UTK as a freshman on the pre-med track despite not knowing much about the field. I had no guidance other than my family persuading me to embark on this path. Eventually, I became an English major and found myself excelling in all […]
Interview with Tori Finklea ’21
Z Eihausen: What can you tell me about your educational career? Tori Finklea: I did community college for two years, and then I came to UT to finish my Creative Writing and Philosophy degrees at UT. After I graduated UT, I went to the Columbia publishing course in New York for the summer of 2022. […]
Law Professor Jason Smith’s Beginnings as a UT English Major
“Attorneys are storytellers”: Smith shares four ways English is an advantageous precursor to law and education Jason Smith (’04) is Director of Legal Writing and Assistant Professor of Law at Lincoln Memorial University in Knoxville. After majoring in English (Literature), he graduated from UT’s College of Law in 2009. He spoke with Prof. Hilary Havens […]
From Rhetoric to the Halls of Power: Houston Holdren’s Career Path
From Capitol Hill to the skies, English helped Houston Holdren soar. English alumna Houston Holdren (’19) is a Senior Executive Assistant for Government Operations (Defense, Space & Security) at Boeing in Arlington, Va. Before that, she served as Director of Operations for the House Republican Conference, U.S. House of Representatives, chaired by Rep. Elise Stefanik […]
English Majors Don’t Have Limits: Ashley Barker and ORNL
Former English Major Flourishes as Section Head for Operations at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility Ashley Barker (’96) is the Section Head for Operations at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) located at Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL). After graduating from UT English with a literature concentration, she went on to receive a Master […]
English Major to Teen Vogue: Claire Dodson’s Career Path
“English is making you a better writer and making you a better person in the world that thinks critically about things.” English alum P. Claire Dodson (‘15) has published stories in, among others, The New York Times, InStyle, O The Oprah Magazine, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and Fast Company, where she worked for several years before becoming an entertainment editor at Teen Vogue. Claire’s father, […]
English Major to Sleep Medicine: Dr. Leigh Ball’s Career Path
Dr. Leigh Ball uses her English degree to improve patient care. Dr. Leigh (Schlactus) Ball (’12) is an internal medicine physician with a specialty in sleep medicine. After an MD at East Tennessee State University and a residency at UT, she now practices in St. Louis, Missouri where she lives with her husband, a fellow […]
English Major to Corporate Lawyer: Jasmine Johnson’s Career Path
Jasmine Johnson (2016) is an attorney in Atlanta, GA, where she practices corporate law. She spoke with Professor Katy Chiles about the value of learning to write well and how much she misses being in English classes. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Katy Chiles: It’s so good to see you! I was just thinking this […]
English Major to Business: Sarah Rainey’s Career Path
Sarah Rainey uses skills she learned in her English courses to thrive in different business sectors. It was a chance meeting in her Technical and Professional Writing class that set Sarah Rainey (’22) on her path. She was a sophomore, concentrating in Technical Communications, and the student who sat next to her was a senior. […]
English Alum Camille Renshaw’s Path from Literature to Real Estate
A background in English has been a key to this CEO’s competitive edge. Camille Renshaw, UT English ’94, is CEO of B+E Real Estate, the first brokerage firm to offer an online trading platform for 1031 exchanges and net lease real estate. B+E has offices in 7 cities – NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, Atlanta, Charlotte, […]
Catching up with COO and English Major David Corts
How Literary Reading and Expository Writing Helped Corts become a Successful Entrepreneur David Corts loves to hire English majors. Corts is the COO of Fresh Technology, a software company that tries to make technology seamless for restaurants so they can focus on food and customers. Corts explains, “I‘ve spent most of my career in software […]
A Matter of Character Analysis
English classes, Hall believes, “teach you how to think” rather than “what to think.” For attorney Christopher A. Hall, practicing law is often a matter of character analysis. “There’s an adversary. Someone who wants to best me. I’m looking at his or her clients, I’m trying to find out what motivates them—pressure points, areas of […]
A Flagship Writing Program
UT’s Judith Anderson Herbert Writing Center has long been a valuable campus resource for students needing guidance on first-year composition themes and tricky upper-level thesis transitions.
Play Explores Power of Music in Troubled Times
by Amy Beth Miller Playwright Ian Kelly has always been intrigued by the question of what someone living in times of political polarization, repression, or war would do. His new work The Gates of Kiev explores that through the story of one of the 20th century’s greatest pianists, who publicly defied Soviet leader Josef Stalin. […]
News and Views May 2024
As we look back on this momentous year from across the fence of summer, we have much to celebrate, as well as a few wistful memories. We bid a happy retirement to five of our long-time colleagues at a year-end celebration: Lance Dean, Laurie Knox, Mary Papke, Rob Stillman, and Richard Yost. PhD and soon-to-be […]
Interdisciplinary Interpretations — Stephen Hay
by Randall Brown Stephen Hay, from Greeneville, Tennessee, built a standout Vol experience double majoring in English and religious studies and minoring in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Program. He has maintained a steady pace with this mix of studies, delivering substantial scholarship to close out his senior year. “I am currently working on my […]
Meet and Greet with Playwright and Actor Ian Kelly
Knoxville, TN: On Wednesday April 24th from 12PM-1PM, writer and actor Ian Kelly will join students and faculty for a Q&A session on the life of a professional writer in the world of theater and film. Ian Kelly is a multi-award-winning author and actor, a New York Times bestselling historical biographer, and a screenwriter and […]
Autumn Hall Interviews Toni Morrison Scholars for Early American Literature Podcast
Interview EARLY AMERICAN PODCAST Autumn Hall, a junior English major focusing on literature and creative writing, interviewed Professors Riché Richardson, Angelyn Mitchell, Michelle Hite, and Dana Williams for the Early American Podcast to discuss their work on Toni Morrison’s A Mercy. Take a listen!
Maria Edgeworth Letters Enter the Digital Age
Dr. Hilary Havens along with colleagues at Wake Forest, Texas A&M, and Xavier University of Louisiana are collaborating on a comprehensive open-access digital archive of Maria Edgeworth’s letters. Edgeworth was an Anglo-Irish Regency author who is best known for her novels and children’s literature. Through the help of volunteers and experts from multiple libraries, over […]
UTK English Roundtable on Careers in Medicine
Dr. Daniel Wallace spoke with two alumni about how studying English impacted their medical careers. University of Tennessee English alumni Carolyn Thompson and Nicole Matis joined Daniel Wallace for a roundtable discussion on how their English degrees helped them in their future careers in medicine. Carolyn C. Thompson, MD, is a Board-certified OB/Gyn with over […]
UTK English Roundtable on Careers in Journalism
Dr. Erin Elizabeth Smith sat down with University of Tennessee English alumni Claire Dodson, Daniel Dassow, and Christopher Moyer for a roundtable discussion on how their English degrees helped them in their future careers in journalism. This online discussion took place on Thursday, April 4th from 5:00-5:30 PM EST on Zoom. Please see the video below. […]
Anderson Receives Academic Outreach Award for Teaching
Misty Anderson, professor and head of the UT Department of English, received the academic outreach award for teaching from the College of Arts and Sciences during the 2023 Faculty Convocation. Since joining UT in 1996, Anderson has sought to make an impact not only in scholarship about the 18th century, but through her active collaborations […]
Graduate Student Spotlight: Respectfully Disagreeing
In an age of social media, cable news, and hyper-partisanship, the act of engaging with those that one disagrees with seems harder than ever to practice. How, one wonders, can a democracy survive without a shared belief in civic discourse and its respect for different perspectives and a common good? Questions such as this drive […]
Undergraduate Student Spotlight: Pursuing Passion
“Try as much as you can,” is Autumn Hall’s advice for students trying to find their way in college. “For me, finding my passion has come from trying as many things as I can and really learning what I want to do with my life,” she said. Hall was confident about her direction when she […]
New Faculty Spotlight: Rima Elabdali
Also joining the department this year as a member of our Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics division is Rima Elabdali, an assistant professor specializing in applied and sociolinguistics. She comes to this position with an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Portland State University and an M.S. in Linguistics and Ph.D. in […]
New Faculty Spotlight: Dionte Harris
Dionte Harris joined the department this year as an assistant professor in twentieth and twenty-first century African American literature, film, and cultural studies. His specialties include Black studies, critical theory, queer and trans theory, performance studies, and visual culture. Before coming to Knoxville, he earned his BA from the University of Maryland, College Park, and […]
Alumni Spotlight: Rodney Thompson
For multi-award-winning video game designer Rodney Thompson (’04), computer science was the obvious answer for his degree path at UT. Obvious, but not very satisfying. “After three years, I got to the point where I was like, I don’t think I can spend the rest of my career sitting and staring at code on a […]
Analyzing Literature (Taylor’s Version)
What do megastar Taylor Swift and the UT English Department have in common? For the one hundred students who showed up for the inaugural meeting of the Taylor Swift Literary Club in September, more than you might think. Sponsored by the English Department, this brainchild of lecturer John Han and Laura Snyder, literature major, brings […]
Message from the Department Head
With each passing year as department head, I become more grateful for our incredible alumni, who support our work through an array of partnerships and gifts. Our website is full of your success stories, which inspire our current students to connect the major they love to exciting careers and fulfilling lives. From law to video […]
Faculty Spotlight: Iliana Rocha, Poetic Justice for True Crime
Assistant Professor Iliana Rocha has been obsessed with true crime ever since she was a child. “Every week I would want to skip ballet because it was on Wednesday nights,” she said. “And that’s the night Unsolved Mysteries was on.” Rocha’s interest in the genre stems, in part, from an unsolved murder within her own […]
Regency Ball Dances the Night Away
On Saturday, February 17th, well dressed lords and ladies descended on Hoskins Library for an immersive experience that would have wowed even the stoic Mr. Darcy. In collaboration between the University of Tennessee English Department and First Take Co., Hoskins Library was transformed into a ballroom filled with some of Austen’s most beloved characters, dancing, […]
Finding Your Own Way: Austin L. Church On a Career in Freelancing
“A freelancing career thus looks like a continuous process of strategic discomfort. You have to be willing to do things you’re not good at because being not good for a while is the only path to getting better.” Austin L. Church (MA ’08) is a writer, marketing consultant, and business coach. He started freelancing in […]
3 English Alumni Honored in 40 Under 40 Class of 2024
We are delighted to celebrate three alumni from English at this year’s 40 under 40 luncheon. The Volunteer 40 Under 40 recognizes forty alumni under the age of 40 who have excelled personally and professionally since completing their degree at UT Knoxville.
UT English to Hold Roundtable on Careers in Journalism
Join University of Tennessee English alumni Claire Dodson, Daniel Dassow, and Christopher Moyer for a roundtable discussion on how their English degrees helped them in their future careers in journalism. This online discussion will take place on Thursday, April 4th from 5:00-5:30 PM EST on Zoom. Log in to join the conversation at http://tiny.utk.edu/englroundtable. P. […]
UT English to Hold Roundtable on Careers in Medicine
Join University of Tennessee English alumni Carolyn Thompson and Nicole Matis for a roundtable discussion on how their English degrees helped them in their future careers in medicine. This online discussion will take place on Thursday, March 7th from 5:00-5:30 PM EST on Zoom. Log in to join the conversation at http://tiny.utk.edu/englroundtable. Carolyn C. Thompson, […]
UTK English Roundtable on Careers in Law, Video Now Available
University of Tennessee English alumni Jasmine Johnson and J. Scott Rose joined Director of Career Development Dr. Erin Elizabeth Smith for a roundtable discussion on how their English degrees helped them in their future careers in law. Jasmine Johnson was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She earned a B.A. in English, summa cum laude, […]
University of Tennessee English Department Hosts Regency Ball February 17th, 2024
What: Jane Austen Regency Ball featuring When: Saturday, February 17, 2024, 7-10 pm Where: Hoskins Hall, 1401 Cumberland Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37996 Tickets (available here): Other details:
English Major to Video Game Design: An Interview with Rodney Thompson
Rodney Thompson’s love of storytelling brought him to English and now game rooms everywhere. English alumnus Rodney Thompson (Creative Writing ’04) is a multi-award-winning video and tabletop game designer. In addition to being the creator of Spectaculars and Dusk City Outlaws—and co-creator of Lords of Waterdeep—he was one of the creative minds behind Dungeons and […]
A Scruffy Star on the Literary Map — Cormac McCarthy’s Knoxville
Brooks Clark, UTK MFA 2016, delves into the connection between Cormac McCarthy and Knoxville through his literary works in the Fall 2023 issue of the Torchbearer. Clark speaks with Bill Hardwig following McCarthy’s death to discuss Knoxville’s recent embrace of one of its native sons.
Thanksgiving stories gloss over the history of US settlement on Native lands
Lisa Michelle King, University of Tennessee Too often, K-12 social studies classes in the U.S. teach a mostly glossed-over story of U.S. settlement. Textbooks tell the stories of adventurous European explorers founding colonies in the “New World,” and stories of the “first Thanksgiving” frequently portray happy colonists and Native Americans feasting together. Accounts of the colonies’ battle […]
UTK English Hiring Two New Professors for 2024
UTK English is excited to announce two new searches for assistant or associate professors in both Medieval literature and Early American Literature, who bring additional areas of strength in some of the following areas: medical humanities, digital humanities, global perspectives, environment and sustainability, and indigenous studies. We are interested in candidates with great scholarly promise, […]
Sign up now for English 492: Spring Break ’24 in New York City Theaters
English 492, New York Drama, Spring 2024 puts you in New York City from March 9 to 17, during UT’s spring break. In this theatre-intensive off-campus course, we will see eight plays in a variety of venues, from experimental theaters to major Broadway houses. Selections so far include the major new musical Water for Elephants, […]
Summer Theater Festivals in Ireland and England, English 491/591
English 491/591 is a three-week off-campus drama course offered during second Summer Session. The course carries three hours of credit at the 400 (undergraduate) level or the 500 (graduate) level. This year’s 491/591 will take place from July 15th to August 5th. At the course’s beginning and end, students will get to experience Europe’s great summer […]
Blessed are the Pets? Mary Dzon Discusses Francis of Assisi and the History of Saints and Pet Blessings
Published: October 3, 2023 8:31am EDT Mary Dzon, University of Tennessee Each year, if you happen to be in New York around Oct. 4, you may catch sight of something unusual: a whole menagerie of animals being welcomed into the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, from spaniels and parrots to even the occasional camel or cow. Since […]
You Will Be Forever Changed by the Writers You Meet
Cormac McCarthy’s death focused attention on writing at UT. But a host of writers past and present mean there is more to Knoxville’s flourishing literary scene than McCarthy’s legacy. Written by Titus Chalk Cormac McCarthy’s death in June 2023 returned Knoxville to book-lovers’ minds. At the time of his death, the author of Suttree, No […]
Taylor Swift Literary Club Shimmers at 1st Meeting
Dr. John Han and senior English major Laura Snyder lead the inaugural meeting of the Taylor Swift Literary Club on Thursday, September 14th. The Daily Beacon interviewed the two in a recent article to discuss the club and the impact of Taylor Swift. The next meeting is set for Tuesday, October 12th from 5-6pm. For […]
Academy of American Poets names Erin Elizabeth Smith Poet Laureate Fellow
Please join the UT English department in congratulating Erin Elizabeth Smith, Distinguished Lecturer in English, selected as a Poet Laureate Fellow by the Academy of American Poets. She is one of 23 laureates honored nationally by the Academy. Founded in 1934, the Academy promotes the reading and creation of poetry in America through a variety […]
2023-2024 Undergraduate Scholarship Winners
Please join in the English Department in celebrating our undergraduate scholarship winners for 2023-2024. Charles and Frances Mangam Merit Scholarship winner Onyx Bard is a senior in Creative Writing. A Knoxville native, they enjoy traveling, stargazing, playing D&D; they also provide a foster home for cats through the local Humane Society. Ila June Bigham is […]
Theatre and Medicine
Stanton B. Garner, Jr. Bloomsbury Press, 2023 Theatre and Medicine offers a tour of this interdisciplinary terrain. Organized into four distinct topics, each represents crucial ways of understanding the theatre-medicine relationship. From discussions on the somatic underpinnings of the body that medicine and theatre take as their subject through to the historical association of theatre […]
UTK English Department Remembers Cormac McCarthy
Bill Hardwig, University of Tennessee Cormac McCarthy, who died on June 13, 2023, at the age of 89, is often characterized rather narrowly as a Southern writer, or perhaps a Southern Gothic writer. McCarthy did lean heavily on his Tennessee upbringing in his first four novels, and he set many others in the deserts of the Southwest U.S. However, as a […]
How might an English degree lead to a career in Health?
Join us for a “Health Humanities” conversation in Fall of 2023 through courses, events, and alumni mentoring sessions with former UT English majors who became MDs, DVMs, or work in health-related professions or non-profits. Choose from classes like Disability and Literature (English 254), Medicine and Literature (English 342), AI and Nuclear Security (English 360), Horses […]
English Department helps McClung Museum Repatriate Indigenous Artifacts
This story, written by Daily Beacon editor and senior English major Daniel Dassow, originally appeared in the Beacon on May 5, 2023. You can read the entire story here. When the nonprofit news site ProPublica launched The Repatriation Project in January, UT landed on a top-10 list that does not come with bragging rights. Out of all universities, museums, societies […]
Graduating English Major Sends a Love Letter to UT English Department
Olivia Hayes, the Daily Beacon Senior Copy Chief, graduates as an English major in just a few weeks. Her love letter to UT and the UT English department, published in the Daily Beacon Opinion section on May 1, 2023, will warm your heart. Olivia wasn’t sure about UT at first, but her experiences outside and […]
Celebrate Graduate Creative Writing Award Winners at May 1st Reading
Please join us to honor and celebrate the winners of our Graduate Creative Writing Awards on Monday, May 1 at 7:00 pm in the Hodges Library Auditorium. Michael Knight assures us that this will be the most exciting reading of the year! Poetry Fiction Creative Nonfiction
Two Torchbearers: English Majors Leading the Way
The English department congratulates seniors Pilar García and Daniel Dassow on their selection as 2023 Torchbearers. To have two English major Torchbearers is quite a feat, though we agree these two exceptional students were obvious choices. Pilar García serves as the President of Sigma Tau Delta and has dedicated untold hours to volunteering and creating […]
Sauskojus wins Humanities Without Walls and UTHC Fellowships
English PhD candidate Kelly Sauskojus, from the Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics division, has been recognized with two prestigious fellowships. She is the winner of a UT Humanities Center Graduate Fellowship for the 2023-2024 year. That fellowship comes with a graduate stipend, a complete release from teaching, and the support of the UTHC community of fellows. […]
MLB Player and English Major R. A. Dickey Talks about Why English Was His Choice
Dickey says the ability to communicate well leads to success, and it’s a skill he says he got from his time spent as an English major at The University of Tennessee. R. A. Dickey gives his pitch on why English is the path to success, in any endeavor. As a student he played baseball for […]
Monica Brashears: From English Major to Novelist
Monica Brashears’ debut novel, House of Cotton, comes out this April. Monica Brashears (’19) double-majored in English (Creative Writing) and Africana Studies. Afterward, she enrolled in the creative writing program at Syracuse University, receiving her MFA in 2022. She grew up in Luttrell, TN, about 20 miles outside Knoxville. Her debut novel House of Cotton is set for publication […]
New Hambright Fellowship Honors Great Teaching
The Department of English proudly announces a new teaching award that celebrates the work of graduate student instructors. The David A. Hambright Teaching Award for Graduate Students commends excellence in teaching by honoring the valuable intellectual and pedagogical contributions of GTAs. In August 2022, the inaugural Hambright Award went to Madeline Crozier, a third-year English […]
From English to MD: Carolyn Thompson
What can you do with an English major? Whatever you want, says Vol Alumna Dr. Carolyn Thompson (’88), who graduated with a BA in English, attended medical school, and established a successful practice as an obstetrician-gynecologist. Her path from English to an MD is not unusual. Though English and other humanities majors constitute less than […]
English’s Conley Young Writers’ Institute February 25th a success.
The 2023 Bryan M. Conley Young Writers’ Institute gave area high school students a chance to explore and celebrate their creative gifts. The Young Writers’ Institute features free creative writing workshops for Tennessee students with an interest in developing their craft. Thanks to continued support from alum Bryan M. Conley, these workshops feature topics focusing […]
Remembering Joseph B. Trahern Jr.
Chuck Maland delivered these beautiful remarks at the funeral of Joe Trahern on January 29, 2023. You can read the formal obituary at the Rose Mortuary website. Maland’s remarks capture some of what he contributed to the UT English department and to the lives of so many colleagues. Joe was kind, brilliant, humble, funny, and […]
News and Views December 2022
Welcome to the December 2022 edition of the English Department News and Views. As you head off to a well-deserved winter break, it’s a time to review our accomplishments and be proud of each other’s successes. I was genuinely moved by reading the list below, which show the range, breadth, and depth of our collective […]
Senior Ivy Kiernan Presents at Discovery Day
Senior English major Ivy Kiernan presented their research on crowdsourcing and open access at Discovery Day on September 13, which showcased undergraduate research at UTK. Kiernan’s presentation was related to their spring 2022 undergraduate research assistantship with Dr. Hilary Havens on the Maria Edgeworth Letters project (MELP), an open-access archive devoted to the correspondence of the […]
UT Professor Goes to Cape Canaveral for Artemis Launch
Margaret Dean is an English professor at the University of Tennessee and has authored multiple books on space travel. This article is a reproduction of the same found at at WBIR.com. Author: Vinay SimlotPublished: 5:55 PM EDT August 29, 2022Updated: 10:20 AM EDT August 30, 2022 KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — University of Tennessee English professor Margaret […]
The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez
Iliana Rocha Tupelo Press, 2022 Winner of the BERKSHIRE PRIZE “Formally vibrant, Iliana Rocha imagines and reimagines the deaths of the forgotten—Inocencio Rodriguez, AKA John Doe. Through multiple tellings and retellings, the author attempts to perform last rites for those who have received no ceremony. Indeed, the unceremonious deaths of the innocents and of innocence make […]
Classical Projections: The Practice and Politics of Film Quotation
Eleni Palis Oxford University Press, 2022 Quotations are a standard way that the humanities make meaning; the pull-quote, epigraph, and quotation are standard for citing evidence and invoking and interrogating authority in both literary and scholarly writing. However, film studies has yet to seriously examine how moving images can quote one another, convening interaction and […]
U.S. Poet Laureate, Former Professor Joy Harjo Receives Honorary Doctorate
Joy Harjo served as Chair of Excellence in Creative Writing from 2016–2018. This article is a reproduction of the same found at UTDailyBeacon.com. Daniel Dassow, Editor-in-Chief May 21, 2022 Updated Jun 1, 2022 On Saturday morning, UT conferred degrees on around 1,100 undergraduate students during the College of Arts and Sciences commencement in Thompson-Boling Arena, […]
Hilary Havens Wins Major NEH Grant
NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Foundations Grant $60,000 – awarded to Maria Edgeworth Letters, April 14, 2022 mariaedgeworth.org PIs: Jessica Richard, Wake Forest University; Hilary Havens, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Susan Egenolf, Texas A & M; Robin Runia, Xavier University. Digital Team: Carrie Johnston and Heather Barnes, WFU; Meredith Hale, UTenn Advisory Board: Pamela Clemit, […]
Grieser Publishes Book Examining African American Language in DC
Jessi Grieser, an associate professor of English linguistics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, published a socio-linguistic book titled, The Black Side of the River. In her book, Professor Grieser takes a linguistics-based approach to explore the impact of gentrification on Black culture in a historically Black neighborhood in Washington, DC, through analysis of years […]
Sally Harris – FYC Spotlight
The Spotlight on First-Year Composition Series is a collection of interviews with some of our best and most experienced teachers in the English Department. Topics in this series include best grading practices, classroom management, and teaching strategies. In this first installment of this semester’s short revival of the series, Sally Harris discusses teaching online and […]
Bre Lillie – FYC Spotlight
The Spotlight on First-Year Composition Series is a collection of interviews with some of our best and most experienced teachers in the English Department. Topics in this series include best grading practices, classroom management, and teaching strategies. In this second installment of this semester’s short revival of the series, Bre Lillie discusses teaching First-Year Composition, […]
Christian Identity, Piety, and Politics in Early Modern England
Robert E. Stillman University of Notre Dame Press, 2021 The Reformation complicated the issue of religious identity, especially among Christians for whom confessional violence at home and religious wars on the continent had made the darkness of confessionalization visible. Robert E. Stillman explores the identity of “Christians without names,” as well as their agency as […]
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 2nd Norton Critical Edition
Laura Howes W.W. Norton, 2021 Marie Borroff’s acclaimed verse translation, marginal glosses, and explanatory footnotes. Laura L. Howes’s full introduction along with Borroff’s seminal essay, “The Metrical Forms,” as well as her “Translator’s Note.” For comparative study and classroom discussion, two French tales of Sir Gawain, four selections from the original Middle English poem, and […]
Evelyn Scott: Background in Tennessee with a Critical Introduction
Bill Hardwig UT Press, 2021 Born Elsie Dunn in 1893 Clarksville, Tennessee, Evelyn Scott lived a tumultuous life that took her to New York, Brazil, western Europe, and the Caribbean. She published twelve novels during her lifetime and was a notable literary figure in the 1920s and 1930s. Published in 1937 alongside her penultimate novel, […]
Down
Erin Elizabeth Smith Stephen F. Austin Press, 2020 Erin Elizabeth Smith’s Down is immediately a delight. Refreshing in its take on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the reader discovers here the odd world and new experience that Smith draws them “down” into. The fall that seems endless takes us into Tennessee, where “petals doodle lawns / like […]
Poetics of Emergence: Affect and History in Postwar Experimental Poetry
Benjamin Lee University of Iowa Press, 2020 Experimental poetry responded to historical change in the decades after World War II, with an attitude of such casual and reckless originality that its insights have often been overlooked. However, as Benjamin Lee argues, to ignore the scenes of self and the historical occasions captured by experimental poets […]
Interaction, Language Use, and Second Language Teaching
Stanton B. Garner, Jr. Routledge Press, 2020 This book presents a view of human language as social interaction, illustrating its implications for language learning and second language teaching. The volume advocates for researchers, practitioners, and administrators to rethink and reconceptualize an understanding of language beyond that of the written word to one encompassing social and […]
The Narrow House by Evelyn Scott with Critical Introduction
Mary E. Papke Wentworth Press, 2019 Evelyn Scott’s first novel, The Narrow House, depicts a family stricken by dysfunctional domesticity. Revolving around troubled members of the Farley family, Scott exposes notions of romantic love, longing, and the image of the Southern belle as damaging, unrealistic constructs, all against the backdrop of a seemingly normal middle-class […]
Network of Bones: Conjuring Key West and the Florida Keys
Sean Morey Texas A & M University Press, 2019 Both a far-removed place of refuge for the fringe of society and a high-status vacation destination, the Keys remain a legendary yet fragile place, still threatened by a human-made disaster, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Likewise, Key West, Florida, can be many things to many […]
At Briarwood School for Girls
Michael Knight Atlantic Monthly Press, 2019 The award-winning author of Eveningland “combines a coming-of-age tale, a ghost story and a meditation on history in his engrossing latest novel” (Minneapolis Star Tribune). It’s 1994 and Lenore Littlefield is a junior at Briarwood School for Girls. She plays basketball. She hates her roommate. History is her favorite subject. […]
Revising the Eighteenth-Century Novel: Authorship from Manuscript to Print
Hilary Havens Cambridge University Press, 2019 Revisions form a natural part of the writing process, but is the concept of revision actually an intrinsic part of the formation of the novel genre? Through the recovery and analysis of material from novel manuscripts and post-publication revisions, Hilary Havens identifies a form of ‘networked authorship’. By tracing […]
English Major Will White Reflects on Global Undergraduate Awards
In November, English major Will White traveled to Dublin to present a paper at the Global Undergraduate Awards; the paper had started as an assignment for professor Lisi Schoenbach’s English 398: Law and Literature class. Recently, Professor Schoenbach and Will sat down together to talk about the experience. Schoenbach: Let’s start by having you tell […]